For the sixth time, the Freie Universität Berlin will offer a free summer course for international and visiting scholars about USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive. This summer, the topic of the course is memories of the Nazis’ forced laborers.
freie universität berlin, vha, visual history archive / Wednesday, July 2, 2014
The National Holocaust Centre and Museum, founded by USC Shoah Foundation Executive Director Stephen Smith and James Smith, will commemorate its 20th anniversary June 26 with a service at Westminster Abbey in London.
/ Friday, June 24, 2016
The Kristallnacht pogrom was a critical turning point on the path to genocide, and all of our #IWitnessChat participants agreed that using testimony is a meaningful way for students to understand and connect with the event. Hearing survivors’ detailed accounts of this night makes it much more accessible to students.
GAM, kristallnacht, iwitness, echoes and reflections, education. Holocaust, op-eds / Wednesday, November 2, 2016
USC Shoah Foundation is planning to record 20 new testimonies for the second phase of its North Africa and Middle East collection. Fundraising is currently underway for this phase to begin.
testimonies of north africa and middle east, Africa, Middle East, jacqueline gmach / Wednesday, March 18, 2015
Public lecture by Gabór Tóth (University of Oxford, History) 2018-2019 Center Postdoctoral Research Fellow
cagr / Monday, January 7, 2019
This lecture is part of the series "Hidden Archives - Public Sturggles: Events Commemorating the 75th Anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising." Presented by Doheny Memorial Library and co-sponsored by the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research.
cagr / Friday, February 2, 2018
Never forget. Never again. These are common phrases used in Holocaust and genocide education. These are important statements especially when they evoke the real reason to study, learn, and teach about genocide. We must bring this content to students to empower them and encourage them to see beyond themselves. If done right, students become aware of the steps that lead to such atrocities. Teaching about genocide is the only way to have a lasting impact on our students, to affect their worldview, to help them understand that they can make a difference.
GAM, iwitness, education, Educator Resource, op-eds / Friday, March 25, 2016
USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research and the USC Casden Institute for the Study of the Jewish Role in American Life invite proposals for their 2018 International Conference.
call for proposals / Wednesday, May 31, 2017
The USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research and the International Institute for Holocaust Research, Yad Vashem wish to announce the third joint workshop for advanced PhD candidates working on Holocaust topics.
cagr / Tuesday, January 31, 2017
The USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research and USC Shoah Foundation present the Annual Sara and Asa Shapiro Scholar Lecture by Dan Stone (Professor of Modern History and Director of the Holocaust Research Institute at Royal Holloway, University of London), 2023-2024 Sara and Asa Shapiro Scholar in Residence. Join us in person for this lecture or attend virtually on Zoom.
/ Thursday, February 2, 2023
At UNESCO’s Paris headquarters on Jan. 27, USC Shoah Foundation Finci-Viterbi Executive Director Stephen Smith will host a panel discussion following a screening of “Who Will Write Our History,” a documentary by Director Roberta Grossman and Executive Producer Nancy Spielberg that chronicles a covert effort by a group of resistance fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto who amassed an archive of documents that would later shed light on the Nazi atrocities that occurred there.
Who Will Write Our History, screening, panel, unesco, Stephen Smith / Tuesday, January 22, 2019
Wendy Lower began conducting research at the Shoah Foundation nearly ten years ago. Now, she’s helping bring other scholars to USC for the first-ever USC Shoah Foundation international conference.
/ Sunday, December 1, 2013
We continue our 10-part Echoes and Reflections series with Lesson 2: Antisemitism.
echoes and reflections, iwitness, teaching / Friday, September 20, 2013
You never know what you are going to discover in the Visual History Archive. Each one of the 53,000 testimonies in the Archive tells a different story of life before, during and after the individual’s experience with genocide.
Woman in Gold, art, Austria, law, Maria Altmann, op-eds / Thursday, April 2, 2015
A lecture by Atina Grossmann (Cooper Union, New York)USC Max Kade Institute for Austrian-German-Swiss Studies2714 S. Hoover St., Los Angeles CA 90070(Parking available at the Institute or on Hoover.)
cagr / Tuesday, February 9, 2016
The Cold War began its thaw 25 years ago, then apparently melted sufficiently for us to get on with our lives without fear. Surprisingly, the slow thaw is still in progress.
russia, moscow, op-eds / Monday, December 23, 2013
Another year dominated by the ongoing pandemic draws to a close. From producing animated films to conducting interviews, forging new partnerships and sharing incredible testimonies, 2021 was a year to remember. Here are some of the highlights of the work the Institute has accomplished.
/ Thursday, December 16, 2021
I first learned about Helena Horowitz’s life history when I found her testimony as I searched through the archive in IWitness the Institute’s educational website featuring the testimonies of survivors and other witnesses to the Holocaust and other genocides.
immigration, Los Angeles, undocumented student, op-eds / Wednesday, February 5, 2014
USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research, in collaboration with the USC Thornton School of Music, will be hosting scholars from around the world for two days of programming on Oct. 10 - 11 to highlight the use of music as a tool to resist oppression and spread awareness.
cagr, musical performance, wolf gruner / Wednesday, August 12, 2015
The medical experiments of Josef Mengele on concentration camp prisoners are well known and documented – but journalist Arthur Allen has written a new book, with help from the Visual History Archive, about two little-known doctors whose experiments actually saved lives and were in themselves acts of defiance against the Nazis.
/ Tuesday, July 22, 2014
Holocaust Remembrance Day, or Yom HaShoah as it’s known in Hebrew, commemorates and honors the victims and survivors of the Holocaust. This year, people around the world will remember the victims of the Holocaust May 4-5, 2016.
GAM, holocaust, Rememberance, yom hashoah, iwitness, op-eds / Tuesday, May 3, 2016
USC Shoah Foundation’s soon-to-launch IWitness initiative, called “100 Days to Inspire Respect,” provides teachers of civics, history, English and other subjects with 100 thought-provoking resources that tackle hate, racism, intolerance, xenophobia and more.
iwitness, 100 days to inspire respect / Thursday, January 12, 2017
This lecture will discuss how the East Galician town of Buczacz was transformed from a site of coexistence, where Poles, Ukrainians, and Jews had lived side-by-side for centuries, into a site of genocide. Between 1941, when the Germans conquered the region, and 1944, when the Soviets liberated it, the entire Jewish population of Buczacz was murdered by the Nazis, with ample help from local Ukrainians, who then also ethnically cleansed the region of the Polish population. What were the reasons for this instance of communal violence, what were its dynamics, and why has it been erased from the local memory?
cagr / Thursday, March 23, 2017
I found as a teacher that the most challenging task when teaching about the Holocaust and genocide, is how to do it not using material that shocks the students to the point that they do not want to look at the content, study the history or listen to present day issues due to the emotional shut down that can occur.
holocaust, education, iwitness, GAM, op-eds / Tuesday, December 15, 2015
You never know what you will find in the Visual History Archive. You hear stories of survival, death, life, hope and even friendship amidst the chaos of genocide. Sidney Shafner and Marcel Levy have remained friends for over 70 years – since the liberation of the concentration camp Dachau.
testimony, friendship, Sidney Shafner, Marcel Levy, liberation, op-eds / Wednesday, May 18, 2016
Holocaust Remembrance Day, or Yom HaShoah as it’s known in Hebrew, commemorates and honors the victims and survivors of the Holocaust. This year, people around the world will remember the victims of the Holocaust April 23- 24, 2017.
GAM, holocaust, Rememberance, yom hashoah, iwitness, op-eds / Monday, April 10, 2017
Much like testimony shows how regimes have constructed borders; testimony demonstrates how individuals can construct bridges to connect with people of different beliefs and identities.
testimony, Tolerance, Election 2016, op-eds / Monday, October 10, 2016
Maël LeNoc, a PhD Candidate in Geography at Texas State University, has been awarded the 2019-2020 Margee and Douglas Greenberg Research Fellowship at the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research.
/ Wednesday, July 31, 2019

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